Will minning bitcoins kill your card?

[P4man]

IMHO, unless you have FREE or extremely cheap electricity, overvolting or overclocking is pointless because it will cost you so much more on your power bill.  

Overclocking actually increases efficiency at a given voltage. Power consumption of the card scales at most linearly with clock, meaning the entire rig's (including CPU, ram, motherboard etc) power scales less than linearly with the gpu clock. Performance does scale linearly, so MH/W improves as you overclock the gpu. Overvolting OTOH is of course not going to increase power efficiency, its going to reduce it quite dramatically.

[PatrickHarnett]

Because this has popped up in my un-read section, I can add another 5970 to my dead pile, but I did also swap a fan between my XFX 5970 into the sapphire card.

[MiningBuddy]

I've had problems with 2 of my 9 cards which went live April/May 2011 time.
Card 1 died on me around October. The fans would spin up on power on but no post or display, upon further inspection it was apparent that a single cable from my pcie plug had come loose and fell out. Not sure if that was the cause or just a coincidence.
Card 2's fan bearings seized on me just before Christmas. Bought an aftermarket cooler as an rma would have left me with an alternate model.

Both cards were overclocked to just before the point of crashing, fan speed a constant 85% and temps were always under 70C, even in the hight of summer. They were made by XFX to which I am trying to avoid in the future  

[ensign_lee]

I've been mining since June with with about 10 GPUs. Most of them 5870s, with some assorted 5850s, 5770s and a 5970 thrown in themix.

EVERY. SINGLE.  ONE of them now has problems. Some of them have outright failed, others just artifact and are still good for mining, but not really as a display card anymore. I can't discount 10/10 cards as mere coincidence. So yes, they definitely do kill your cards.

[DeathAndTaxes]

I've been mining since June with with about 10 GPUs. Most of them 5870s, with some assorted 5850s, 5770s and a 5970 thrown in themix.

EVERY. SINGLE.  ONE of them now has problems. Some of them have outright failed, others just artifact and are still good for mining, but not really as a display card anymore. I can't discount 10/10 cards as mere coincidence. So yes, they definitely do kill your cards.

What clock, voltage, fans, and temp.  I have been mining w/ 15 5970 for much longer than that and they are all solid.  I did have to replace 2 fans so far and likely will need to replace them all eventually but that is because they are Chinese junk.  Then again I don't abuse them with high temps, voltages, and clocks.

[bitcool]

Mostly had problems with the fans, only one fried chip on a XFX 5970

[jake262144]

For me it's 0/7 GPUs. All in fine working order, the oldest of them running since summer. Undervolting is crucial IMO.

They've not been idling, either. The ASUS hd6950 DCII 1GB (which I detest for its non-standard VRM, BTW) has been running since early September at 942 MHz. This is the max stable setting for this particular card using any recent AMD driver and 2.5 SDK.  At 945 it will lock up in minutes.

Scoring a perfect 10/10 failured cards, surely you must have done something wrong?  
May I ask what temps and fan speeds you've been running those cards at?

[BCMan]

 I don't think videocard can die if everything tuned properly, otherwise it can die even from playing games with high AA @ stock frequencies!

 Look at my radeon 5770 stats:

850(stock)/300:
temp1: 69.5
temp2: 74
temp3: 73
fan speed: 51%
VDDC:1.125 v
 191.31 mhash/s

850/1200 (fully stock):
temp1: 74
temp2: 80.5
temp3: 78
fan speed: 56%
VDDC: 1.125 v
196.59 mhash/s

960/300:
temp1: 73
temp2: 78
temp3: 76.5
fan: 55%
VDDC: 1.125 v
221.10 mhash/s

 Thats funny, but OCed it's even a bit colder than stock and with much higher mhash/s! So, if it will die, then it will die with stock freq. earlier than with 960/300! And difference in temp and fan speed with 850/300 is very tiny.

 UPD with undervolted card.
960/300/1.005v:
temp1: 67
temp2: 71
temp3: 70
fan: 50%
221.39 mhash/s

[ensign_lee]

Been running the 5870's at 900 Mhz, underclocking the memory to 1000. The 5970 I left at stock because I wanted it to last awhile (lasted all of 2.5 months until 1 GPU just outright failed lol). Stock voltages.

Most of my cards live at around 80 celcius, with some of them getting to be in their own cases living at 70-75 celcius instead.

Two of them have the weirdest problem: they will be fine under load, but when you let them idle, then they display erratic screens. lol.

For those of you above who said that you have had 0 fail, have you tested them as display monitors? Where you hook them up to 2 screens? I ask because for some of the cards, they are fine on 1 screen but if you ask them to display two then they start artifacting, which to me is still a failure.

[P4man]

I don't think videocard can die if everything tuned properly, otherwise it can die even from playing games with high AA @ stock frequencies!

And its not like videocards that are not used for mining ever die 

Its really simple, any silicon chip thats used will eventually die. Its a given. The only question is how long it will take. It could be centuries, it could be days. But stressing these chips will reduce their lifespan, particularly when overvolting and overheating. If you are lucky, you may never notice, but it doesnt change the facts.

[BCMan]

I don't think videocard can die if everything tuned properly, otherwise it can die even from playing games with high AA @ stock frequencies!

And its not like videocards that are not used for mining ever die  

Its really simple, any silicon chip thats used will eventually die. Its a given. The only question is how long it will take. It could be centuries, it could be days. But stressing these chips will reduce their lifespan, particularly when overvolting and overheating. If you are lucky, you may never notice, but it doesnt change the facts.

I know. I mean it should work at least 2-3 years with 24/7 mode and with temp <70C. Overclocking + undervolting will kill a card faster if temp is in safe spot (<70C), than stock freq/volt with >80C?

[grue]

I don't think videocard can die if everything tuned properly, otherwise it can die even from playing games with high AA @ stock frequencies!

And its not like videocards that are not used for mining ever die 

Its really simple, any silicon chip thats used will eventually die. Its a given. The only question is how long it will take. It could be centuries, it could be days. But stressing these chips will reduce their lifespan, particularly when overvolting and overheating. If you are lucky, you may never notice, but it doesnt change the facts.

I know. I mean it should work at least 2-3 years with 24/7 mode and with temp <70C. Overclocking + undervolting will kill a card faster if temp is in safe spot (<70C), than stock freq/volt with >80C?

undervolting should make the card last longer, because lower voltage = smaller electromigration

[P4man]

I know. I mean it should work at least 2-3 years with 24/7 mode and with temp <70C. Overclocking + undervolting will kill a card faster if temp is in safe spot (<70C), than stock freq/volt with >80C?

Obviously not. Both current and temperature are key exacerbating factors of electromigration. Clockspeed afaik, is not. But its a false dilemma, because a higher clockspeed will result in higher temperature and require higher voltage, regardless of what your testing shows (hint: there are several temperature sensors in the GPU, you are measuring only one, quite possibly GpuIO which is the memory controller. Try checking the shader sensor).

[BCMan]

I know. I mean it should work at least 2-3 years with 24/7 mode and with temp <70C. Overclocking + undervolting will kill a card faster if temp is in safe spot (<70C), than stock freq/volt with >80C?

Obviously not. Both current and temperature are key exacerbating factors of electromigration. Clockspeed afaik, is not. But its a false dilemma, because a higher clockspeed will result in higher temperature and require higher voltage, regardless of what your testing shows (hint: there are several temperature sensors in the GPU, you are measuring only one, quite possibly GpuIO which is the memory controller. Try checking the shader sensor).

Temp1-3 are different sensors, no? I don't see any others with gpu-z.

[P4man]

Temp1-3 are different sensors, no? I don't see any others with gpu-z.

INdeed, you posted all 3. Still its worth pointing out that your 850/300 temps are unsurprisingly lower than your 960/300 temps despite lower fan speeds, so my point stands. Its also a fair point to make that gaming cards are not designed to run what AMD would consider a thermal virus 24/7. Professional compute cards from AMD and nVidia (firepro and quadro) are mostly based on the chips as the gaming cards, but they generally run at lower clocks and voltages. These cards are designed to run 24/7 at max load.

[BCMan]

Temp1-3 are different sensors, no? I don't see any others with gpu-z.

INdeed, you posted all 3. Still its worth pointing out that your 850/300 temps are unsurprisingly lower than your 960/300 temps despite lower fan speeds, so my point stands. Its also a fair point to make that gaming cards are not designed to run what AMD would consider a thermal virus 24/7. Professional compute cards from AMD and nVidia (firepro and quadro) are mostly based on the chips as the gaming cards, but they generally run at lower clocks and voltages. These cards are designed to run 24/7 at max load.

Well, but temp of 960/300/1.005v is lower than 850/300/1.125v.

[ensign_lee]

I've been mining since June with with about 10 GPUs. Most of them 5870s, with some assorted 5850s, 5770s and a 5970 thrown in themix.

EVERY. SINGLE.  ONE of them now has problems. Some of them have outright failed, others just artifact and are still good for mining, but not really as a display card anymore. I can't discount 10/10 cards as mere coincidence. So yes, they definitely do kill your cards.

Wow. This is crazy. I've been mining longer than you, non-stop, with more cards and I haven't had a single failure yet. I have healthy overclocks (although not overvolts) on each card.

I have to imagine there is a reason for your terrible luck. What brand power supplies have you been using? I use seasonic or pcpower&cooling, what I consider to be two of the best. I think clean power has a lot to do with hardware life expectancy.

Also what were your average temps? I'm unsatisfied if I'm running at anything over 66 degrees. I like to use big 120mm fans to push a lot of fresh air towards my cards, hoping to reduce the amount the small built in fans have to work.

Seasonic and Corsair PSUs. I also don't run them at > 65% of their full advertised capacity, so it shouldn't be PSUs. Temps might be it, but I noticed that with air flowing on them vs air not flowing on them from 120 mm fans, the temp only dropped about 1-2 degrees celcius, so *shrug*. Don't know how I could have made them any cooler without running caseless.

[cuz0882]

I ruined a 5970's by setting it to start mining on system startup. When the pc starts all the fans go to 100% and the pc is very unstable for a few seconds. Topped with mining seemed to screw up one of the gpus. I finally got it mining again, but it can't be used for anything else now. Luckily that is the only thing I bought it for.

[yjacket]

Been running the 5870's at 900 Mhz, underclocking the memory to 1000. The 5970 I left at stock because I wanted it to last awhile (lasted all of 2.5 months until 1 GPU just outright failed lol). Stock voltages.

Most of my cards live at around 80 celcius, with some of them getting to be in their own cases living at 70-75 celcius instead.

Two of them have the weirdest problem: they will be fine under load, but when you let them idle, then they display erratic screens. lol.

For those of you above who said that you have had 0 fail, have you tested them as display monitors? Where you hook them up to 2 screens? I ask because for some of the cards, they are fine on 1 screen but if you ask them to display two then they start artifacting, which to me is still a failure.

Definitely have this issue.

[ssateneth]

I found that artifacting happens around the time I start changing clocks and applying a load to the cards. It mines fine, and it is NOT a clock I would normally set for gaming. If I reboot and use stock or "gamer" type overclocks and run furmark, it runs fine no artifacts.